1. I’ve got kind of into horoscopes. I used to read them religiously when I bought women’s magazines back in 2004ish, when I was 14ish. Then I stopped. Then a few months ago I read some and I was like, you know what, this is getting me pumped. Nothing gets me pumped anymore! I gotta make a note of this. So I followed a couple websites on my Feedly, and recently talked about it on twitter, and someone gave me a bit more info, and basically I’m totally into it. I still can’t read most of anything, I’m not sure I believe much, I’m not sure I put much weight on it— but what I get out of it is immeasurable and I just don’t get it out of anywhere else. I feel silly even saying it. But when someone says just what you need to hear— even if it’s bad!— and you don’t have a “legitimate” source (yet— shocking news, I have a psych appt on August 8 for the first time in years) telling you these things? It can easily be what gets you from A to B. And so far it’s not led me astray once.

Here’s what I’m reading on a weekly basis: The Numinous, and Chani Nicholas. Usually Chani I find incredibly opaque and Numinous is to the point; this week it was the opposite. And I was just introduced to Amelia Quint, who gave me a little bit of info on my chart and I look forward to reading going forward.

3. The dress and the photos in this Mode and the City post are fighting for my attention. There’s something so wonderfully calm about it all, and her look is, as always, perfect.

4. Media consumption is a part of my life again, with ups and downs. I watched all of Santa Clarita Diet, which was entertaining, if not something I’ll remember much of in five days (or now). Then I started Grace & Frankie even though, not unlike zombies, it is not my thing, and watched a season before I decided I was both feeling it too much and not feeling it enough, and wanted the daughters to feature more heavily.

After that, I got sucked in by iZombie. That is probably the first TV show I’ve watched in many, many years — since I stopped writing fanfic, in fact — that I’ve felt fannish about, that I’ve wanted to expand on, that I’ve felt invested in in a good way and wanted to go on. Like I said above, zombies are not usually my thing, but the mythology here is quite all right, and I love that the plot expands while keeping a tight focus on the main cast, and that the secrets do keep getting out in a timely manner. I ship basically everyone with everyone, and I wish it had a bigger fandom, but at least the show itself is doing well, doing so, so well, and so far doesn’t seem like one I’ll be bitter about for years to come (sup, Vampire Diaries).

I’m looking for something new now and I started Lovesick, but as much as I like Antonia Thomas I just don’t know that I’m feeling it too much. So I may switch to something else. I still got Brooklyn Nine-Nine to catch up on.

4. I read The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli and it was amazing. Just. Goddamn. Books are the best, giddy happy amazing. Loved it to bits. Happy I can now read Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda and there’s even a connection!

Earlier this year — finishing it just as I got to Munich; I’ll expand on my travels at some point, promise! — I also read Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown, and I could not recommend it more, either. I’ve had very good luck with my picks so far this year. They’re both organically diverse, beautiful coming-of-age stories, with fleshed-out sibling and family relationships and oh my god, Mary Carlson. Oh my god. And the way I related to Unrequited’s Molly in regards to Reid? A HUG.

5. Summer is way underway, too underway, please-get-it-away-from-me underway, and it’s getting me all confused about laundry because there’s so little to wash that I feel I should toss in more… but it’s just less fabric, isn’t it, and also: there are only so many summer clothes I can actually wear when the temp is in the high 90sF/30sC, and all I have is a fan that keeps warming up when it’s on too long.

A great question, self! Or not so much, geographically speaking. My next-to-last post was written on a window seat in the eastern aisle at the Victoria & Albert Museum; I told my friend to go walk around as I already have plenty of photos of the outside of the Natural History Museum, and sat down to try and make some cash. A few days later I went home and that was that.

In late December, I got my room back. In January, I adapted to it, which took longer than expected due to a bout of depression. And while I’m always open to photography gigs anywhere, provided travel expenses are paid, other than that I’m staying put for at least nine months, one of which has passed, another one of which is passing terribly quickly, goddamn, February, why are you this way, and I’m trying to get a goddamn grip.

It’s clearly not the easiest.

There’s a lot of photos — some edited, some not. Last year I traveled a lot, trying to get away from sharing a room with my sister. I visited three times as many countries in six months as I had in the previous 26 years. I turned 27 on a flight from Lisbon to London. I had some more duck. I had avocado. I had pheasant. I did a boudoir shoot. In July, in one week, I did five portrait shoots. In September, I real-life-met a friend I’d met online ten years ago, and did her engagement shoot at Zwarte Haan. I went to Paris because it was the cheapest way to get home.

I’ve alienated a lot of people, too. I’m learning to learn what I can and move on.

I designed a resume and had it adapted — loosely — to Word for an agency; it was interesting trying to get it to look good in an application I very rarely use, and a good experience really working with a team there and letting them interpret. I like what they came up with.

I updated my media kit, and I’m finishing up a client’s from a long time ago. I have a few other things I owe. A lot of things. My parents are off unemployment benefits and that’s one of the reasons I went into a deep depression last month. I’m 27 but I’m not ready. I’m not good enough. I do good work but — I do it so sporadically, I take so long, I’m so unreliable. Of course I know these things. Of course I’m working on them. Of course they hurt all along.

But I’ve always loved this blog. I love showing off my work; I love the opportunities; I love the design and the honesty I’m able to promote. I’ve long wanted to be consistent and failed but maybe I just need to restructure my schedule a little bit, not do more but do better.

Not do more but do better all around.

It’s another way of protecting myself, and I made that my phrase of the year for a reason.

Disclaimer: These are my experiences. Mental illness hits people differently, and many of these are things only a minority experience. Regardless, I like to talk about this stuff openly because I was #blessed with a lack of shame and this puts me in an excellent position to fight against a stigma that only hurts me when coming from those I love.

The past three months were half me sharing with my sister, and half having my room back to myself. I want to shed some clarity on what living with anxiety and depression is like, so I’m going to call up specific incidents as well as general states of mind, because that’s how that goes; you can’t just get rid of it. It affects the way you act and react, the way you think.

First of all, a confession a long time coming: I’ve been struggling with alcohol. Wine is incredibly cheap in Spain — I generally drink 1.49€ a bottle white wine — and for the time I was sharing a room, I felt hopeless, I couldn’t think of anything that would improve my life and keep me going, and wine was there for me. I started to rely on those alcohol highs to get me through the days. It wasn’t healthy, but it was the only coping mechanism I could afford; I couldn’t bring myself to go through the GP/psychiatrist/psychologist/maybe therapist pain again. I still can’t. Next I go, I want to up my escitalopram, and I will be asking for a therapist. If I have to jump through those same hoops — if I have to put up with whoever is chosen for me, like that awful psychologist I got that last time — I’m not going to go for it.

Hell, I’m thinking of switching GPs, and this one has known me since I was 14, prescribes me what he thinks is the best version of what I think I need, and there’s no way my mom’s going to take it well as he’s been her doctor for even longer.

But here we are. Last month — after my grandma left and my sister moved out of my room — I had my usual long adaptation period — a week at minimum, two, three. I had two bad hangovers, which I’d never experienced before. I genuinely started drinking less, and I’m keeping that up. I’m very proud of myself. No one else is, as long as I drink; apparently the only way to achieve parental support is to quit cold turkey, and I’ve not found a nonalcoholic drink that keeps my fingers away from my brows yet. But I’m not getting drunk every day. I don’t need the high. So I’m trying to do better.

The other thing I need to cut back on is lorazepam. I asked someone what day it was to know how many i could take; they asked me who put me on that treatment, and I laughed. Because otherwise you cry, right? This helps, but I also know, from the time in September I had to quit cold turkey for six days, that I’m addicted. It’s a vaguely controlled addiction. Controlled by me. And it’s messing with my cognitive skills in some way or other. But I’m not ready to let go yet.

Before my grandma left, I had a few meltdowns. Episodes. Whatever you want to call them. Tantrums might be a good descriptor, too. I can’t remember what caused them now, which is a pain because if I did maybe I’d be able to describe exactly why sharing a room does such a number on my mental health. But that’s victim-blaming, isn’t it? Why can’t people just… believe me, when I say I’m in deep pain? At one point, no one did, and it was a proper baby tantrum, kicking at the bed, going at my hair, and while my hair was fine really, I only ever ruin my eyebrows, I then went outside and started channeling my trich onto the plants. It was very destructive in a way I only tend to be self-destructive, and it really bothered me.

I’ve talked about my trich quite a few times on the blog, last time being 2015, so maybe it’s a good time for an update? I do have eyebrows again, but I continue to obsess over them. Sometimes I pull out my lashes, but they’re too close to my eyes for comfort, and that generally keeps me from doing damage. I have to be really angry to go for my head, and have only done so maybe twice in all these years. I don’t envy anyone whose trich is that way, but I wanted to acknowledge that I know it can be worse. You can paint on eyebrows, sometimes, but you can’t paint on hair. One thing you can do, if trich or another form of stress leads to hair loss, is a transplant; the Harley Street Hair Clinic offers FUE hair transplants using your existing hair, which seems much nicer than what I used to think transplants were like.

I have the opposite problem, so far: my eyebrows grow back with a goddamn vengeance.

Anxiety and depression are also why it’s taken me so long to post. Dread less is something I first thought of years ago, and which I still think on a regular basis. It’s not writer’s block. It’s dread.

The other day I straight up pulled out spoon theory on my parents as to why I couldn’t go to the supermarket and still get anything done, and it sort of worked so maybe I should just simplify things that way more. I don’t know. But here’s a full post. It’s taken me three months.

Largely because if I wait any longer my joints will just refuse to live. Also I may not look as good, but there’s always makeup for that and I’m still getting carded on the reg, so I think I have a good two decades of being photogenic ahead of me still.

I just did a boudoir shoot the other day, bear with my ego. I looked good. (Compliments to the photographer and my travel partner, Julia, who also let me shoot her. We’ll post these photos eventually, and the universe will collectively sigh and stare because we’re hot, y’all.)

Anyway, onwards and literally upwards, this is what I’d really like to get to when I can afford it:

Gymnastics coaching

I could try to coach myself, and I’m pretty sure I’d break my neck and die, especially because the thing I am most interested in with regards to gymnastics is bars. Since I’m never going to be good enough to compete and I’m just doing it as a personal challenge slash I love gymnastics and want to give eight-year-old me the satisfaction of doing a goddamn cartwheel, I may well skip out beam and even vault — but I want someone to guide me through the rest, and I want good equipment, and I know how expensive it is from the array of interviews and gymnastics-related media I have seen.

Either to work up to gymnastics or as an extra, I wouldn’t mind being coached in tennis and/or aerials, either. Turns out I want to fly, apparently. Who knew?

Orthodontics

My teeth have been a massive-ass disaster for as long as I can remember, and they’re not getting any better. I’m not embarrassed by them, but I do spend a lot of time making sure I don’t grin in photos, and I’ve had to edit my protruding front tooth more than once, because one front tooth protruding further than its twin is just unsightly, I can’t be body posi about that, not least of all because they’re that way from me trying to grit my anger away through my teeth. Everything is just incredibly uneven and so profoundly not white, and I have a fang on one side of my mouth but not the other. I don’t even want to lose the fangs, honestly; I kind of want to have two. But I suppose I could part with them.

Fangs aside, though, since I saw Rebecca from Bec Boop get Invisalign I’ve been eying it, and it’s gone on the bucket list. There’s nothing else about myself I would change — my wonky knees are fine! My stretch marks have character (and don’t show in photos often)! I’m actually really happy with my body and even my face, most of the time, plus I’m terrified of standard surgery, so that’s a no. But fuck if I don’t want an even set of close-to-white teeth, and Invisalign seems to make that so easy with little to no negative effects.

Goddamn therapy

This is the least exciting, but also priority #1. I just want to find a good therapist. It’s pretty self-explanatory. I want to be able to choose them, and that costs money. It might even require a change of location altogether, which may compound or lessen my anxiety, but wouldn’t cancel the need for therapy in any way. I know there are other avenues I can pursue in the meanwhile, but they’ve failed me before and if you have any experience with mental health services, you know how discouraging it can be to try and try and try and fail and fail. I want someone who understands what I’m going through, who treats me with respect, and who has similar values — and I’d really prefer it to be in-location therapy, because blocking out part of my day for it and physically stepping out does wonders for my ability to get out of my own way and focus.

This is threefold: I want to 1) cosplay Lara Croft 2) in a LARPing scenario 3) while someone photographs it for posterity and beauty. I don’t think a realistic outfit (and it needs to be realistic) would be that difficult to acquire, but the rest of the goal is somewhat lofty. I’d of course love to do some wild outdoors shots, which would be a real physical challenge for me, but I’d most like to LARP in something like, oh, a museum, a big city — places where people aren’t just going to cordon themselves off for you. So I’m pretty sure it would cost me an eye if I wanted to convince one of these places to let me use it as a location.

But oh, it would be magnificent.

Is there anything like this you’re hoping to do soon? Tell me all about your health & fitness hopes and dreams!

Post was written in collaboration with Hampstead Orthodontic Practice.

Since my last life post, my grandma moved in with us and my sister moved into my room. This was at the beginning of June, and has been better and worse than I expected. I’ve barely had to fight for time alone since my parents rearranged the furniture in the living room and fixed the armchairs, but nights… oh, nights. I don’t want to hash it all out again, as I rant about it every morning because it happens every night, so let’s sum it up by saying that my sister won’t let me sleep at night — sometimes literally, to the point that I can’t manage to fall asleep until sunrise — and it’s taken a massive toll on me. I am a zombie, if a zombie couldn’t even gather the strength to eat brains and relied on wine for short bursts of energy to get the bare minimum done.

I always intended to get the hell out of here as soon as my sister moved in because we do not get along as roommates at all; I’m always compromising and I need too much alone time; she wants things however she likes and doesn’t care for the needs of others. I get frustrated easily, and she gets mad and cruel easily. It’s a recipe for disaster, however well we were getting along back in May before we had to share a room. Long story short, my grandma only stays with us six months, then six months with my aunt, then three-six with my other aunt, then back here for six months. So I wanted to be out of here for as much of the six months as possible.

It’s been a little while, and I don’t have relevant photos to break it down with as usual because I’m still working my way through those three days I spent not-in-my-hometown in March, so I’m going to jump right in:

1. I got Snapchat. I’m @lixhewett over there, predictably, and I post a lot of my face — with and without snapchat filters that make me look like a koala/goth/comic book character — and a lot of my cat. Sometimes there are glimpses at my notebooks and whatever I’m editing on my laptop at the time. Occasionally I whine. If you’re interested in seeing that kind of thing from me, you’re welcome to follow.

2. I finished my very first bullet journal, of sorts. I call it bullet journal because it’s a notebook that I use in specific ways, but it’s very very low-key — I draw up a 10-day chart for my habits every four or six pages, and then the rest of the pages are divided in two vertical halves to host a) daily to-dos and b) rolling to-dos. I have no intention of making it any more complicated. (I do want to start using my planner more, but that’s an entirely different thing). It’s not perfect, but it’s working well so far, and I’m just going to hold on to that for a bit.

3. Over the month of April I tweeted a poem every day under the hashtag #aclassicnotion. For the most part, it’s free-verse work by female poets from the last hundred years. It’s all poetry I really, really love, because it’s my first time doing something like this and I had no reason not to reach for my favorites. If you decide to have a browse, I hope you find something that speaks to you.

4. I wrapped up week three of onefiftydips! It’s already been five days and I’ve not started week four yet. I’m keeping up with my exercise chart and everything, but the super low bar I have for workouts is about a fifth of a program workout, and everything else I do is flexibility and balance things; my endurance sucks, and dips are the only thing strength exercise I don’t hate. Still: progress!

5. Baking and being scared of feeling dirty do not mix smoothly. Thought y’all should know.

6. If my purpose in life were to be a pillow for cats, I would be happy. Just let me know, universe dear, so I can stop worrying about other shit.

One of my goals for the new year was to take a picture every day. If you have a fancy camera you may be familiar with the situation — when you travel or do something fun it gets a ton of use, but then you’re home and you go transfer the photos and you realize you’ve shot two days in three months. I wanted to challenge myself to get better photos of everyday things, as well as find beauty in the common.

I did a fairly good job for sixteen days; on the sixteenth day, my camera made a whirring sound and said, “Error 99!” And that was that. I have now borrowed a Nikon camera from a friend, which should hold me over until I figure out what to do with my Canon. I’m waiting to hear whether it can be repaired at all, and how much it will cost me to do so. If all else fails, I can probably afford a 700D body. I’m telling myself it’s not the same as spending on a laptop that won’t last; it’s always good to have multiple camera bodies, so the 700D won’t be left in the dust whenever I have enough money to buy my dream 5D Mark — but it’s still money I wasn’t planning to spend.

What this means on a practical, blog-front level — I will hopefully have another fortnight in pictures for the middle of February, but I skipped three weeks. I still kept up with many other habits, so it’s all a work in progress and I’m not too fussed about it. I take plenty of photos — I’m a bit compulsive as a shooter — so there’s never much of an obvious gap. And here’s a summary of my January — at least the first half.

This is a little wave hello since I won’t be posting much until the new year — I could, but the blogging world is dead. I have no interest in screaming into a void. I’d rather schedule posts for busier times, and I am doing that.

At the end of last month, I’d come up with a relatively straightforward plan to launch three things in November, as well as do a significantly better job of keeping up with another two areas of my business. I’m happy to tell you my blogging and client work have gone unusually smoothly, but the projects… not so much.

Everyone always shares what they did to make things work, sometimes what didn’t work during those launches, and how much work happened behind the scenes that you may have assumed did not. They usually talk about things that happened, after they happened. The fact that they got pushed back or weren’t ready when they were supposed to is a line in the larger scheme of things — just like I’m hoping this post will be a small note once I get my projects going.